May 11, 2005

It fascinates me that a radio survey can tell you how many people listen to a station, yet a radio survey cannot provide details of listening habits to that station (or combination of stations).

To do this, you'd need each station to submit more than their playlist. You'd have to make available the daily music logs to truly expose what turns listeners on, or off.

Technically speaking, most of these playlists ARE freely available - you just have to throw an internet 'net' over them to gather the data. Visit ZM, Niu FM, Mai FM, Flava - most stations that have an active online presence usually have a 'now playing' ticker. It would just take a bit of code to subscribe to this information, collate and generate a dynamic html type document. By 24 hours, you'd have a good idea of high rotates, the back library, and WHEN.

To truly track a song, you may have to measure it by having surveys crunched to 5 minute blocks (rather than 15 at present), and graph the numbers that way.

Perhaps a more powerful way of measuring the success of a song (and no, not based on sales), is using something like Audioscrobbler that records playlists data. Combine this information with listening data from Research International, and you have oblivious listening trends and a way to measure the true appeal of such logged song.

Further to this, the net that Audioscrobbler has cast could work on an international scale. It collects data from all stations generating a playlist. The true popularity of a song could be measured more accurately between Frankfurt and Sydney, for example.

Take Tam, for example. If a graph of listening habits like this represented the overall popularity/appeal of a song gathered from all Auckland, NZ or Worldwide radio - it would not only be a true representation of good programming, but loyal listenership too (especially if the 'hottest' song was also her favourite).

May 8, 2005

Amid growing concerns about the laxity of New Zealand's immigration controls, many readers may be concerned that they are not the kind of person Winston Peters wants in our country.

So we've compiled this helpful quiz to see if you've slipped under the radar.

Fill one out for your friends, family and neighbours too!

Choose the option that best describes the kind of alien you are.
a) The foreign kind.
b) The -ated kind.
c) The friendly, close-encounters kind.
d) The acid-blooded disemboweling kind.
e) The American Presidential kind

What is your place of birth?
a) The sort of country that scam emails come from.
b) Planet bigot.
c) Algeria.
d) Don't look at me like that, I was born here.
e) Just look at my fake passport

I was allowed into the country because:
a) I wasn't carrying any fruit or vegetables.
b) I've never denied the Holocaust.
c) The officials were embarrassed about not being able to pronounce my name.
d) I'm white.
e) I'm Winston's biographer

I can't go home because:
a) It's a military dictatorship now.
b) It's a democracy now.
c) It's a smoking hole in the ground.
d) My house has been seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
e) I can't get a license there, but I can here.

Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Ba'ath party?
a) Not as such.
b) Yes, but I only joined for the sadistic violence.
c) Yes, but only because otherwise I couldn't get a job.
d) Yes, but only because it sounded kinky.
e) I'm an actor and need rehearsal for the upcoming religious filming boom.

If told to find an Iraqi, I would...
a) Look in that dusty old box of files
b) Look down the back of the couch.
c) Turn in my family.
d) Wonder whether someone had a broader agenda.
e) Go to Iraq.

When I filled in my visa application I...
a) Was uncompromisingly honest.
b) Left out my suicide-bombing career.
c) Lied about the grades I got at the School of the Americas.
d) Asked for a bigger credit limit.
e) Was drunk and had hot-dog breath.

Do you hold moral values that are an anathema to right-thinking New Zealanders?
a) No.
b) No. Not like those mainstream freaks.
c) Yes.
d) Yes, but I'm a MP for New Zealand First or United Future.
e) Values?

Do you speak an incomprehensible heathen lingo?
a) No. I think that kind of thing is terrible rude.
b) Actually, I studied at Oxford.
c) Yes, but I am under 20.
d) Yes, but I am an economist.
e) Yes, I am an economist, whom is under 20.

I am like an Iraqi because...
a) I am genetically evil.
b) My electricity supply still isn't fixed.
c) My country turned into a hellhole in the early 90s.
d) I am suffering from the effects of depleted uranium.
e) Iraq too have a troubled national broadcaster.

Which of the following best describes your position in your homeland?
a) Stalwart of the regime.
b) Employee of the regime.
c) Tacit supporter of the regime.
d) Lying on the ground begging for mercy.
e) Lying on the ground in general.

New Zealand is a soft touch for terrorists because...
a) Terrorists just love the idea of spending two years in solitary confinement.
b) We are in the grip of political correctness gone mad.
c) We believe in due process and the rule of law.
d) That whole dangerous bad-boy thing just makes us go weak at the knees.
e) There is water and electricity.

If I want to offer my political opponents a present I would...
a) Get them chocolates.
b) Let them live.
c) Defame the Police Commissioner.
d) Give them a one-way ticket to Uzbekistan.
e) All of the above.

As far as any human rights abuses go...
a) I was just following orders.
b) I was out of my office at the time.
c) I was a US ally at the time.
d) I'll forgive you if you let me out of solitary confinement.
e) My donations to CCF were actually going to WWF wrestlers.

I am most likely to leave New Zealand because...
a) They won't let me live down that thing with the Kurds.
b) I looked at the immigration officer funny.
c) I looked funny to the immigration officer.
d) Winston Peters says so.
e) I thought it was a part of Australia.

If forced to leave New Zealand I will...
a) Be in peril of my life.
b) Take my sandy towels with me.
c) Begin "the mother of all legal battles".
d) Have to abandon my cats.
e) Move to the South Island.

SCORING: For an assessment of your answers, send the completed quiz to Winston Peters, c/o the Ministry of Expulsion, Parliament, Wellington. You'll find out about the results soon enough.

If you believe that you may be an immigrant, the authorities will look more kindly on you if you take action immediately. If it is not possible to go out in a rowboat and throw yourself over the twelve mile limit, you might consider starting up your own labour camp.

And remember, be vigilant! Immigrants could be found anywhere at any time, even in the places where you feel most secure.

May 3, 2005

It was a hot summer, needless to say, and I survived by the skin of my teeth; a minute of miracle and wonder.

You see, I had just built an electroshock machine made of batteries, a capacitor, and a switch.

But, just by change, the monday after Andrew Dice Clay on Saturday Night Live, I decided to attach to the leads of the machine a piezoelectric crystal (which is a piece of computer equipment that buzzes).

The air turned funny when I pressed the button. I could see and feel an effect I can only describe as an electrical and subliminally acoustical roller coaster. At first it gave me headaches. I brought it to Sir Costa's Pizza Cafe where I used to work and sprayed their foyer. It worked for them too; it gave them a headache.

More sooner than later, I noticed time stretched thinner and thinner until I noticed time seemed to stop while it was turned on. This took place in clocks I watched on my VCR and a German-made clock given to me by my father.

I noticed time seemed to decelerate after a certain period of turnon, then accelerate when the button was turned off, according to the changing pattern of the capacitor.

Then I realized for what it was: a flux capacitor. I then, during wednesday and thursday, wrote how it could be attached to any internal combustion engine, and how in a static frame could be extremely dangerous. It could be used for _time_ _travel_.

That friday I realized that the future was probably where Deborah Poe went (she had disappeared from a circle K convenience store nearby months previous) for I had participated in the Search for her at the Mall and had reported to the lieutenant I had seen a UFO that Monday Morning she disappeared on an early morning walk. The circumstances around her disappearance was mysterious, as she left her purse and car keys behind. Deborah Poe was an aaspiring yuppie, earning money for a house of her own.

Too much began happening. I was a pure clock-filter of information. What happened Friday after the invention freqked me out. I found myself calling dozens of phone numbers, talking in understanding with the people on the other end, and getting working answers back.

Eventually, by Sunday night/monday morning, and 911 rescue calls more than 7 times in a period of five hours, and they getting more and more excited (my saying what I had invented and they kicking me upstairs) they told me to lie down and get some sleep. I did, and the TV exploded, which had been turned on.

First it started talking to me, threatening me that it would stop time if I didn't call 911 again. It spoke a command - LAUGH OFF - then exploded. I felt myself burning, lying on the couch with my back to the tv, but there were no flames. Then the tv reassembled itself and the flames stopped. I checked my papers on the floor and they weren't even singed. I called 911 again and they kicked me upstairs twice. They said the sheriff was outside. I ran out yelling "sheriff! sheriff! I was freaked out.

He was there. It was a late-model Cutlass Sierra by Chrystler, licence BCK 312. He was heavily outfitted, and the car was about 17 feet long, longer than the standard 15 feet, and wider.

He requested backup. He was covering a disturbance in an apartment nearby. Another, just as big police car drove up in about fifteen to twenty seconds. A cop and a "student cop" wearing a police academy t-shirt came out. They came in the apartment and inspected. They told me to go back to sleep. I tried, but for some reason, I got dressed and took the flux capacitor to the Mall, which by this time was fully flossed by the molybdemum-like smell of the flossy chemical ignition, and the Police Inspector along with the student Cop, inspected it -made me disassemble it (take off the cover) reassemble it, then he told me to fo home and go back to sleep.

The next morning, astounded by what happened, called 911 to ask if I should go to the hospital. I had gotten used to calling 911. This time they came right away, and took me to Florida North Psychiatric Hospital.